33°53′58″N35°30′25″E / 33.89944°N 35.50694°E /33.89944; 35.50694
Beirut Castle was a majorCrusader castle located in downtownBeirut,Lebanon. It was mostly built during theCrusades and demolished during works of extension of thePort of Beirut in the late 19th century.[1]
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Beirut's city walls were mentioned byWilliam of Tyre at the time of itsfirst conquest by the Crusaders in 1110.[1]: 324 A first city castle appears to have been built in 1183–1185, followingSaladin's unsuccessful siege attempt in 1183 and probably under the leadership ofRaymond III of Tripoli.[1]: 326 By the time Saladin came back and successfully took over Beirut in 1187, the city castle was well documented by chroniclers.[1]: 326–327 In 1197 the city was retaken by the Crusaders, and in 1198 it came under the rule ofJohn of Ibelin. The castle was described in 1212 byWilbrand of Oldenburg, following its refurbishment by John.[1]: 328–329
WhenMamluk troops captured the city from the Crusaders in 1291, they partly demolished the fortifications, but the MamlukSultan Barquq built a new tower on the site in the late 14th century.[1]: 332 In the 1770s,Jazzar Pasha destroyed part of the castle but then rebuilt the tower again. In 1840 during theEgyptian–Ottoman War, the castle was bombed and damaged by a British fleet.[1]: 335 As evidenced by maps of that period, the old castle by then was known as "land castle" and the tower on an islet known as "sea castle."[2]
In 1887, following decades of rapid economic expansion driven bytrade liberalization andsilk exports,[3] theMunicipality of Beirut obtained authorization from theOttoman Empire to enlarge and modernize thePort of Beirut.[4] All castle structures and the promontories on which they were built were entirely flattened between 1889 and 1895 to construct a road and railway that served the new port facilities, nowAvenueCharles Helou. The area that had laid at the foot of the castle promontory became a market for bulk trade in grains, sugar, rice, coffee and tea, known asSouk Mal-al-Qabban.
Excavations conducted in 1995 in the context of development ofBeirut Central District uncovered remains of the Beirut (Land) Castle’s basement.[1][5]
The castle was built upon a promontory on the sea, to the north of theancient Tell of Beirut and west of the present-day intersection of Charles Helou Avenue and Al-Shuhada Street. A separate fortification known asBurj al-Musallah was built on an islet that was located roughly on the intersection of Helou Avenue andFoch Street.[6] In the Crusader period, a 6-meter-wide moat separated the southwestern tower from the lower city, thus protecting the castle from attacks.
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